"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." - Erich Fromm

There is a lot of "noise in the channel" surrounding organizational creativity and innovation these days.  In fact, much of the noise comes from those who don't even understand the difference between creativity (ideas & invention) and innovation (action & implementation).  Sadly, even some of the new "expert consultants" from perennial business fad band-wagon-jumpers like Deloitte, McKinsey, Wipro, etc. even get this wrong.

Not surpising...as waves of the "next big thing" always bring posers who attempt to use their largesse to impress, but instead waste everyone's time and money by lacking the background to support effective transformation, change and improvement.  Yesterday's army of high-priced Value Engineers and Six Sigma Black Belts are today's Corporate Innovation Consultants and Ideation Facilitators.

So, fellow defenders of ideas, creativity, and imagination, how are we going to protect our innovation knowledge against the posers, the wanna-bes, and the clingers-on?  How do we set ourselves apart as the real experts in this field?  How do we convince organizational leaders to begin to let go of the incremental, cost-cutting, outsourcing, off-shoring vicegrip? 

My answer is...courage.

Courage to stop making innovation and organizational creativity unnecessarily confusing.  Let's be honest...it isn't rocket science.  In fact, truth be told, its nothing more than common sense.  Ever watch a three year-old play, or problem solve, or imagine?  They don't have a Yale MBA or special McKinsey training seminar background.  Yet, they seem to thrive in the world of "make believe."  They develop unique solutions to problems.

But unfortunately, as adults, and sometimes as innovation consultants, we instinctively try to make it more complicated.  We do this to convince ourselves that we provide value.  We do it to justify our $200/hour rate by converting the self-made confusing into something easy to understand.  Well...it just isn't necessary, and it is going to take some courage to change.  So how do we get started?

Organizations need help with transformations.  To visualize this, think of most organizations as a large ocean-going container ship.  Once you get that thing moving in one direction, it is going to take some monumental effort and horsepower to change course.  And why do they need to change course?  To stay competitive.  If you stand still in business, you die.  So, for the past few years, organizations focused on cutting costs, streamlining operations and eliminating variance in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the competition.  But when everyone follows the same course, that differentiation quickly evaporates.  Its what I call "Best Practice Syndrome." 

That leads us to where we are today.  Organizations now realize that the only thing that provides business success, at least on a sustained basis, (which is why innovation never has been, and never will be, a fad) is differentiation.  And with differentiation comes growth.  And with growth comes success.  But where does this differentiation come from?  Ideas.  Imagination.  Courage.

While there are many ways to differentiate/innovate such as: incremental, disruptive, breakthrough, product, service, business model, etc., the basic formula remains the same:

Imagination + Experience = Ideas + Problem = Creativity + Action = Innovation + Implementation = Differentiation + Growth = Success

Again, not rocket science. 

So...what value do organizational creativity and innovation consultants provide if this is all just common sense?  Well, I'll refer back to my point about organizations resembling large ocean-going container ships.  There is a ton of inertia involved in shifting course from "best practices" to "next practices."  We provide the structure, order, process, knowledge, experience, and courage to make common sense work within organizations.  We provide the ability to make sense out of "fuzzy front end" of ideas, imagination and, in general, what could be.  We provide the discipline to chart a course that ideas can follow to become reality.  We lay the foundation of solid management principles that support a culture of creation and differentiation.

You see...there is so much we have to offer organizations that seek to embark on this challenging transformation.   So stop adding more "noise to the channel" by making the concepts of creativity and innovation unnecessarily confusing or complicated. 

Have the courage to share common sense.  Have the courage to make the "what" and "why" as easy as possible, while working to deliver the "how" through our specialized knowledge of how ideas, creativity, imagination, innovation, project management and business management merge together to provide competitive advantage.